


No Ever After

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: There is no 'forever after' for Steve anymore, there's only the now.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also for the Trope Bingo box 'Reunion'.

Two weeks after Maria doesn’t come in to work at the Avengers compound, Steve finds his leather jacket hanging in a dry-cleaning sleeve on his office coat rack.

The note pinned to the plastic covering simply says, _Sorry it took so long to return. Forgot I had it. M._

It stings that she wouldn’t return the jacket in person.

It stings more that her note says nothing else.

Steve puts the jacket away in his wardrobe for the next time he goes out civvie. But he folds the note and tucks it in his desk drawer.

He doesn’t think about why.

–

A month before Maria stopped coming in to the compound, Fury told Steve he was heading out.

“Technically, I’m still dead.” Back in his leather dusters, eyepatch and all, the old man shrugged. “Legalities and all that. And I’ve got a few irons in the fire here and there. Best I keep an eye on them.”

“Will Maria be staying?”

Fury gave him a look. “Why don’t you ask her?”

Steve didn’t ask because he’d seen the fight between Maria and Tony after Sokovia – the one about her loyalties, about secrets, about trustworthiness. He’d stayed well out of it, because it wasn’t a fight he wanted to have with Maria, but he understood how Tony felt only too well when the older man said, “And how do we believe you now, Hill? How can we trust that you’re on our side?”

Her expression was flat as she answered, “You can’t. That’s why it’s trust.”

–

There wasn’t anything between them. They just...worked together at S.H.I.E.L.D and then at the Tower. Ate meals together, discussed missions, argued politics and ethics and morality, sent jokes and links in text messages, and sometimes sat and worked at their own things in the lounge at Stark Tower, saying nothing to each other, merely content to be in company.

“About as married as you can get without actually being married,” Natasha said slyly when she found Steve preparing a meal with Maria sitting on the other side of the bench, neither of them actually talking.

Maria didn’t even look up from her magazine as she gave Natasha the finger.

After that, it felt awkward being around her, and he supposed she felt it as well because she stopped just turning up where he was, too.

–

Sharon texted him after the events of DC, but he didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Although really, it was as simple as, _you couldn’t have told me the truth?_

Going through his phone one night in the compound, he lights upon the text she sent him over a year and a half ago, and drops her a text in return. Just a quick hello, an apology for not answering for so long, he heard she was working at the CIA and he hopes she’s well. He hits send before he can think better of it.

Fifteen minutes later, the text chimes in, _Hey Steve, yes, I’m well. Work is busy but not a patch on youknowwhere. I heard you’re working with the new Av upstate NY. Catch up sometime?_

He says yes to the catchup, but they never do. Instead they text back and forth and back and forth. She’s friendly and sometimes flirty, and Steve is friendly because he simply isn’t comfortable with flirting. And he figures they’ll catch up sometime.

‘Sometime’ turns out to be four months later, at Peggy’s funeral.

Peggy, who turns out to have been Sharon’s aunt.

–

He calls Maria’s number – the last number he has on record for her – as he leaves the Siberian facility, hoping she’ll answer...and hoping she won’t.

“This is Hill.”

“I need a safehouse for two for one day, preferably two. And a location for where Sam and the others have been detained.”

The pause on the line might be shock. Or it might just be her taking stock. She gives him a location in France – a farmhouse two hours out of Paris – and Steve and Bucky and the Quinjet arrive just before sunrise, desperately needing somewhere to lick their wounds and find their ground before they go looking for the others.

“You’re sure she’s on our side?” Bucky asks, his voice an exhausted rasp as the Quinjet ramp seals closed behind them.

“No,” Steve answers. Ahead of them, a light has flicked on in the farmhouse – someone awake and moving around, aware that they’ve arrived. “But I trust her.”

–

It turns out the safehouse is _her_ safehouse.

“You should have said.” It’s not that Steve’s angry with her for not telling them, it’s that...she should have told them. Called for help. Let them know. They’d been _friends_ once upon a time, and if they weren’t as close as they had been, that didn’t mean they weren’t friends anymore.

Maria closes her eyes like she’s counting to ten. Her lashes are almost black against the pallor of her skin, and she’s lost weight – she was always slender, but now she’s skinny. And apparently it used to be worse – this is recovery.

Recovering or not, she still speaks with all the authority and impatience of Commander Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“I had the help I needed. I got the necessary treatment. I didn’t need the Avengers hovering.” She exhales long and slow. “Now, if you want to focus on _important_ things, Steve, I know where the others are being held.”

She doesn’t just know where the others are beng held; she also knows how to get them out.

Steve should be beyond being surprised by this woman.

‘Should’ being the operative word.

–

“So,” Bucky says as they take off the next evening, looking for a prison that has no fixed location and with only the designation of ‘the Raft’, “what about the blonde?”

“Her name’s Sharon Carter. We met while... She was my neighbour in DC.” Which Bucky might or might not remember. Steve hasn’t pushed to find out which parts of Bucky’s memories are haze and holes, mostly because he doesn’t want to know the answer of how much of the horror of decades Bucky recalls.

“‘ _Carter_ ’?”

“Peggy’s niece.” Which, if Steve thinks about it, is maybe a little awkward. “What about her?” 

Bucky sighs. “I shouldn’t need to tell you that wooing one dame while in love with another is a bad idea, Stevie.”

He’s not... It’s not... There’s nothing happening. There never has been. “Maria and I are just friends.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

 


	2. Chapter 2

A month out of Wakanda and Steve is almost accustomed to living life on the run.

Sam sticks with him, of course. “Got nowhere else to go – and nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“Someone needs to keep an eye on you two,” says Wanda. She doesn’t need to point out that she has nowhere else to go, either.

Steve gives Clint and Scott cell numbers and email drops should they need to make contact – just as he did with Tony. He’s pretty sure that they won’t call him, either, but they should have the option.

He and Sam and Wanda live lightly, taking care to fade into the background as they move through the world, and using Wanda’s skills where they don’t fade so well. The news cycle moves on to the American election, and the drama of the Avengers fight in Berlin fades to yesterday’s events.

Then, one afternoon, Steve glimpses Natasha in the markets of Istanbul – a familiar sashay in a crowd of strangers, topped by a cropped swing of blonde hair. It’s no surprise when he gets back to the tenement where they’re staying and finds her sitting on the couch.

“Don’t want to run alone anymore?”

She shrugs. It seems casual, but Steve can see the tension in her. “I thought maybe you’d want someone who’s already got contacts across Europe.”

–

And now they’re four, moving in and out of the shadows, learning to live with each other while on the run.

It’s a little like being back in the war again – with the pace of life constantly changing, home a far distant place, and trusted friends all around him.

Of course, there’s the small matter of being internationally wanted fugitives, which complicates things. Where they live. How they get their basics. What they can do on a day to day basis. Who they can trust.

To start with, it’s only Natasha who comes and goes, drifting in and out of their lives with only the occasional note to let them know where she’s gone. Steve doesn’t ask for her whereabouts, especially not after the first time, when Sam jokes about Natasha checking in with Maria.

Nat doesn’t deny it; Steve doesn’t ask.

Sharon makes contact two weeks after Natasha joins them. A month later, Steve finds the time to leave Sam and Wanda fending for themselves to meet up with her in Prague.

–

In DC, Sharon was the girl next door, friendly and flirty. Then she was Agent 13 - someone who’d been set upon him to keep an eye on him, to give him backup. Then, once they started becoming friends again, it turned out she was Peggy’s niece.

Now...now she’s Sharon, known and unknown both, and...different.

Something’s not right.

It’s all changed around, and for all that they try to bring back the fluid and comfortable camaraderie of those months texting each other, it just doesn’t work. Steve tries to kiss her like he wants her, but it feels...forced. He slides his arm around her waist and her arms encircle his throat, but there’s a clutching pit in his belly. And even the movement of her body against his in the entryway of her apartment feels wrong – arousing, yes, but because they're pressed against each other rather than because he wants this.

Sharon pulls her mouth from his to look him in the eye, and for one moment he thinks she’s going to ask a lover’s question and braces himself to tell her that he can’t do this.

“We missed our chance, didn’t we?”

His mouth is full of regret as he answers her. “Yes.”

–

When he gets back to the meeting point, though, there’s only Sam waiting for him.

“Maria came with a message for Wanda from Vision. He wanted a meeting with her, and Maria’s the go-between.” He eyes Steve. “How was Prague?”

“It didn’t work out.” And Steve isn’t going to talk about it. He regrets not making a move sooner, when there might have been a chance, but regret has been cold comfort the last couple of days. It’s time to move on, work out where they’re going from here. Work out if they need to back Wanda up. “You’re sure the meeting was safe?”

Sam looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “Maria brought the message. And went with Wanda as backup.”

That’s enough for Sam, as it was enough for Wanda.

Steve wonders why it’s not enough for him.

–

Wanda returns a week later with the buoyant radiance of a woman in love. Sam ribs her about it until she threatens to charge him with enough static electricity to make the next few days extremely uncomfortable touching anything. Since Sam plans to go out to one of the underground clubs in Ankara the next night – both to blow off steam and to pick up, he stops the teasing.

She doesn’t ask Steve about Prague – quite deliberately, Steve thinks.

Weirdly, the only time someone mentions Steve’s trip to see Sharon is when Natasha gets back the day after Wanda, takes one look at Steve and asks, “It was a no-go in Prague, then?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“He’s been a nightmare to live with this last week,” Sam says off-handedly.

“I can see.” Natasha lays her hands on the table, flat and open. “This might take your mind off your love-life woes, Steve. I have a job for us – if you’re up for the work.”

–

There will always be work in world security.

Natasha explains that there’ve been a number of small, covert operations running around the world ever since S.H.I.E.L.D came down. Many of these operations were led by former S.H.I.E.L.D personnel – screened for possible HYDRA connections, of course – and at the centre of it all—

“Fury.”

“To start with, yes. Maria took over most of it after Sokovia.” Natasha’s smile is wry but affectionate. “Apparently even Nick has his limits.”

And so Steve’s still dancing to S.H.I.E.L.D’s tune, even after he brought the thing down.

“You got something on your shoulder, Steve.” Sam comments one night on a rooftop in Cairo after an argument about whose work they’re doing and whether they’re going to keep on this way. “It’s a damn big chip called S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“It hid HYDRA for eighty years.”

“And was brought down with the necessary assistance of two of the highest ranking people in it. One of whom ran mission control for the Avengers for a year and change after. If Maria can’t be trusted because she was S.H.I.E.L.D, what the hell were you all doing as Avengers?”

–

They do world security work on the side, but Steve sees neither sound nor sign of Maria – or Fury, for that matter.

Natasha comes and goes, and Steve knows better than to ask where she’s been.

Sam stays and chills, charms and manages their finances and their food, and seems to thrive in their wayward life on the run.

Wanda settles into the routine of things, and every now and then, leaves for a few days, coming back transformed and vivid before the everyday washes the glow from her eyes.

And Steve Rogers, no longer Captain America, goes about his business – one more soldier trying to defend the world that’s all he has.

Young Peter Parker gets involved in several things he shouldn’t, but makes good before Steve can get there to intervene. The Wakandans stand their ground on knowledge-sharing over technology-sharing, to the rage and frustration of governments everywhere. There’s no word from Thor. Nobody brings news of Banner. Clint and Scott keep their heads down and their families out of the public view. Rhodey recovers from his injury but stays on with the Avengers.

Tony doesn’t call.

Bucky does.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky looks...whole.

That’s the first thing Steve thinks when he sees Bucky’s face on the video link Nat secured for him. The lines of grief and struggle in his face are still there, but...smudged. Softer. The pain is still there but it has more distance. He’s more at ease with himself. And the smile that answers Steve’s disbelieving, “Bucky?” is almost the one of old.

“So,” Steve says when Bucky finishes updating him on the work Princess Shuri has done on him to deprogram him, to give him space from his memories, to restore his cognitive functions, “are they going to let you out anytime soon?”

The smile fades a little. “They’ve cleared me to leave if I want. But...I’ve decided not to go.”

He doesn’t realise how much he was counting on seeing Bucky again – on having one part of his past  _ back _ – until it’s clear they won’t be meeting anytime soon. Still, he keeps his tone light. “Not even a flyby visit?”

“Steve.” It’s not quite a plea; more of...a resignation. “There’s nowhere safe for me to go. A visit puts you and the people with you in danger. You’ve been keeping under the radar, you’ve gotta stay there. The Wakandans know what I am, they’ve got...measures in place to hold me. I’m not a danger to them.”

“You’re not a danger to us, Buck.”

“I want to stay here, Steve.” Bucky hesitates, then adds, “I’m _choosing_ to stay here.”

–

It’s the choice that stays his hand, that stills Steve’s tongue.

For the first time in decades, Bucky has gotten to choose. Steve may have a claim to override that, but he won’t. He has to move on, live with Bucky’s choices, and start making his own.

A week after Bucky’s call, he tells Natasha, “I want to talk to Maria.”

“I can pass a message along.”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

She doesn’t wince, but something about her body language suggests that this is a big ask for her. “What if she doesn’t want to talk to you?”

“Then she doesn’t want to talk to me.” But Steve wants to at least attempt the reconnection with Maria. They were friends once, and since he has precious few of those anymore, he’ll try to mend bridges where he can.

Call it a feeling, but something’s coming.

“All I want is for you to ask her to contact me directly.”

Nat’s expression suggests she already knows what the answer will be, but she shrugs. “I’ll put the request in.”

–

A week passes, then another. He doesn’t hear from Maria and he’s not really surprised. Disappointed, maybe, but not surprised.

December rolls in and so does Christmas, Steve finds it difficult to engage in the hopeful spirit of the world.

Wanda decides to do her vanishing act over Christmas and New Year, and Nat goes hunting for something she won’t talk about with Steve. Sam has a military friend from one of his tours who’s going to be in Edinburgh over the season and invites Steve to go with. But Steve sees the look on Sam’s face between when Sam hangs up on his friend and when he realises he shouldn’t leave Steve alone for the holidays, and knows he’d only be third wheel.

“You go,” he says, keeping it light. “I need a break from you lot anyway.”

Usually Sam would make some kind of quip back about them needing a break from Steve. Today, he hesitates. “Don’t spend the season alone, Steve.”

After Sam goes, though, Steve listens to the silence and feels like he’s been alone for a long time.

–

Christmas Eve arrives with snow in this part of the world, which makes walking to the morning mass picturesque.

Bearded, jacketed, and hooded, Steve passes beneath notice among the worshippers at the local cathedral. But he sits up the back, where the scent of incense and candles swirls in with the gust of air from outside, and listens to the music, the rise and fall of the priest’s voice in the liturgy, and wishes he could feel the comfort in the ritual that he remembers from when he was a kid.

Steve wants to feel like there’s somewhere he might belong in the world, that there’s a plan for everything, a time and a season for all things. He wants to feel that there’s more to life than random chance, that it’s not just all technologically advanced aliens posing as gods, and items of unimaginable power being wielded by fallible beings, that everything he’s been through has a purpose.

He doesn’t believe anymore.

–

After the service, while people go home to their Christmas dinners, Steve takes one of the walking trails out of the city and into the countryside.

Once around the first curve, he starts running the well-travelled paths, letting the gusty winds swirl around him, breathing the frost-filled air of field and pine wood, and travelling with the memories of the war. Not just the Howling Commandoes, although he can hear Gabe’s laugh, Dum Dum’s grumble, a quip from Jim, and Monty’s answering retort, but the men – and some women, too – he served with in those years.

And, of course, Peggy. Peggy in a prim dress during a Christmas briefing in London, refusing to kiss the Howling Commandos - including Steve - beneath the mistletoe.  _ How terribly common, _ she’d told Dum Dum.  _ If you want to kiss a woman, find a reason less tediously overdone than ‘the traditions of the season’. _

Out in the quiet countryside, in the biting winds and the icy chill that took him under after  _ the Valkyrie’s  _ crash, Steve plunges through the snow and the bracken, the wind and the memories, trying to run from the things that slid away from him before he could ever reach for them.

But he can’t run forever.

–

At the next town, his phone buzzes with a sudden dump of messages and missed calls. One call and a voicemail from Sam. One call from a number he doesn’t know. And two calls and three messages from Wanda.

Sam’s voicemail is asking if Wanda has gotten hold of him.

Wanda first text asks if he has a contact number for Maria. The next one says that she’s been out of contact for a week, and even Vision isn’t able to find any record of her movements.

Her first call wanders a little.  _ Vis says the body of the man who was supposed to be partnering her was found two days ago in Eastern Europe. It looks like a mugging, but there’s chatter...  _ In the background, Vision is reporting something about some kind of transport being made and the delivery of a human package...  _ I’ll call back. _

The next text is a geolocation in old Avengers mission code. And the second call is crisp and short and to the point.  _ I know this is not the protocol we agreed upon, but we are going in at 1500, down for four hours, post-contact below radar.  _

Steve decodes the address according to old Avengers methods and comes up with...a building in Estonia, situated a little outside the city of Rakvere, in a barbed-wire compound. He checks the time – only an hour in. And Maria is missing and has been out of contact for a week – which is not unusual for Maria.

Wanda knows this. Vision knows this. Steve knows this.

Yet both Wanda and Vision have deemed it necessary to go in after her. And Steve’s chest feels squashed, like his lungs have been folded in on themselves.

He texts Wanda to tell her he’s coming, then takes the risk and hitches a lift back to the city.

If Maria needs assistance, Steve’s going to need everything he’s got.

 


	4. Chapter 4

At a quarter past three, Wanda calls.

“You are on your way?”

Steve’s less than half an hour away by Quinjet, and just detouring to avoid the flight path of a commercial liner. “Nearly there. Mission status?”

“Aborted.” Wanda makes a noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “She was already on her way out. Vis picked up her signal and she is fine. A little annoyed.”

Relief chokes him before he swallows hard. “Put her on, please.”

There’s a murmur in the background, and then the faint sound of the phone being transferred. A moment later, Maria’s on the line. “Sorry to get you all dressed up and nowhere to go.”

Her voice is a little hoarse, and she sounds tired.

“Under the circumstance, I’m not complaining. Did you get what you needed?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry about your partner. Wanda said he was found dead..”

“I’m sorry about him, too. I’d be more sorry if he hadn’t tried to kill me.” She starts coughing, and the sound has a throaty rasp.

Steve frowns. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“A minor bug, Rogers. Nothing that sleep and rest won’t cure.”

“And how much sleep or rest have you had in the last six months?”

“Steve—”

“I’m on my way in any case. And this was supposed to be Wanda and Vision’s time away. So I’ll come in and keep an eye on you, and they can go about their holiday business.”

The noise on the other end of the phone line might be a huff or it might be a sigh. Either way, it’s an acceptance of his presence, however grudging, and that’s enough for Steve.

“Merry Christmas,” he tells her, blithely.

–

When Steve walks into the apartment, the smell of roasting goose is thick in the air.

“Wanda is cooking Christmas dinner,” explains Vision as they make their way down the hall to the kitchen of the safehouse – a small house at the edge of a village in Poland. “We had the ingredients ready and it seemed a waste to otherwise forgo the meal.”

“Maria?”

“The commander is sleeping.”

And not just sleeping, Steve notes, but sleeping on the couch beneath a comforter, as though she was talking with the others and just drowsed off She’s nearly as thin as he remembers from last time, and with a lightly pallid look beneath the light tan she picked up sometime in her travels.

“She has been asleep since you called,” Vision murmurs when Steve asks how long she’s been out.

“Unusual.”

“I surmise the Commander believes herself safe.” 

“Is she wrong?”

“Not at all. It is merely an uncommon level of trust.”

“Or an uncommon level of sickness,” Steve murmurs.

“You know, I _can_ hear you.” Maria opens her eyes and shifts on the couch.

“Don’t get up!” He strides forward when she tries to sit up, puts a hand on her shoulder to ease her back down. “And you wonder why I’m here to keep an eye on you!”

She rolls her eyes, but the exasperation lacks its usual bite. “Mother Hen Rogers.”

“That’s _Captain_ Mother Hen Rogers to you,” he retorts.

–

It’s not a celebratory dinner, but there’s a quiet air of camaraderie to it.

Vision doesn’t need to eat food, although he tastes from Wanda’s plate. Steve guesses that when Vision is out with Wanda, he eats to preserve appearances, but he doesn’t need sustenance the way humans do.

They don’t talk about the Avengers, about the others, about world security. They talk politics, music, history, and religion. They discuss and argue and for a few moments, it’s almost like the last seven months never happened.

But as it grows later, Maria is tiring, talking less, blinking more. And when the conversation flags, the look Wanda gives Vision is one Steve hasn’t seen before – open warmth, with laughter and knowing and promise to it.

The android drops his gaze in what might be a blush were he human. “We should go.”

Steve isn’t sure if he should say something to Vision about his relationship with Wanda or not – he wants to, but he’s not sure it would be right to. He doesn’t, in the end, seeing them out with all the usual farewells, before closing the door behind them.

When he goes back to the dining room, Maria’s already starting to clean up.

He herds her out of the kitchen. “I’ll do that later,” he said. “You’re barely awake.”

It’s a sign of just how exhausted she is that she goes without arguing.

–

The next week is quiet and uneventful.

_Domestic,_ Steve thinks, but knows better than to say it out loud. 

Maria mostly sleeps, wakes to eat, and once takes a call from someone Steve doesn’t recognise, and has to open up her laptop and log in to a system he doesn’t recognise to do something there. She waves him away when he tries to ask if she needs his assistance, but he keeps an eye on her until the call is done.

Then he puts a plate of mixed cookies down in front of her.

She looks at the cookies, then at him. “Tell me you didn’t make these.”

“I think Wanda and Vision got them at the markets; they were among the other things they brought here with them.” He looks keenly at her. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. But,” she adds, “not so tired I can’t have a cookie.”

Steve grins. “I can get you a glass of milk if you want.”

“Literal cookies and milk? Really?”

“Why not?” 

Maria snorts, but she takes the glass of milk he offers her, and sits on the couch with him to watch _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ . 

She even shares a cookie or two.

–

Long before Jack admits his mistake and allows Christmas to be saved, Maria’s asleep. Steve smiles and eases a quilt up over her. She doesn’t wake up.

Steve carries her to her bed after the credits roll, and gets nothing more than a brief protest as he picks her up. Oh, she pushes him away as he lays her down on the bed, and moves her head when he tries to brush hair off her face, but she doesn’t wake up, and she doesn’t resist.

_An uncommon level of trust,_ Vision said. 

It would break that trust to climb into the other side of the bed. To curl up around her and warm her with his body. To draw her against him and listen to her breathe through the night. They’re just friends. Still, Steve lets himself ache with the longing for a minute. Then he turns off the light and pulls the door mostly closed to leave her to her sleep.

As he goes back to the kitchen to take stock of what groceries they’re going to need if they’re to stay here much longer, her phone buzzes with a call.

Steve checks the caller ID, wondering if she even has numbers programmed into this phone. But this caller has a name and a number stored.

_**Nick** _ _._

Steve cancels the call.

–

Steve didn’t know Maria kept in touch with Nick while she was working with the Avengers, but looking at it after the fact, it made sense. And no, he didn’t need her to pick sides the way Tony demanded, but it’s not a comfortable thought that there’s a man who has her loyalty above and beyond anything she has for Steve.

Except at the heart of it, Steve doesn’t know what Maria has for him.

By the time she emerges at dinnertime, sleepy and hungry, Steve has a meal ready for her.

Maria checks her phone before she eats, frowns a little at the missed call from Fury.

Maybe it’s petty to feel pleased that she doesn’t call Fury back immediately, instead eating the dinner Steve sets before her, but Steve never made any claim to being _nice_ . 

They eat with easy conversation, discussions about life and politics, what they think Thor is doing, and where Banner might be. She shares that Pepper is back with Tony again, and that Helen is working with Princess Shuri of Wakanda. She tells him how she’s been helping Peter Parker deal with being a teenager and a superhero, which mostly involves making sure that he knows he has somewhere to go if it gets too much.

“Not that he’ll ever admit that it’s too much,” she says sardonically. “He’s a seventeen year old boy and they know _everything_.”

With Maria sitting across from him, eating and conversing, casual and comfortable as those months in Stark Tower before Natasha made it awkward, Steve feels like they’ve reached equilibrium again. A balanced state of being, where they’re _friends_ again, not just colleagues who stay in touch to get things done. 

Which makes the note she leaves him the day after New Year all the more stinging. 

_Thanks for the care and be careful. M._

–

Steve broods about it a little as he tidies up the apartment and hikes back to where he left the Quinjet.

He’s a weapon in her arsenal of world security, a friend that she’ll spend time with, a man that she trusts.

Trust should be enough. Trust _is_ enough. It’s not her fault that Steve wants to know where she is and when he’ll see her again. It’s not her fault that he wants her to think of him and contact him when she wants someone to lean on or a head to bite off and not just when she’s in trouble or when she needs something done. It’s not her fault that he wants her to come to him as a first port of call, not a refuge of last resort. 

It’s not her problem. 

As he runs through the flight checklist, Steve supposes it’s a bit like wanting the moon – or to join the army as a ninety-pound asthmatic. 

He accepted that Ultron was right several years ago. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself without a war – without something to fight for. It’s not in Steve’s nature to stand back when he wants something, either. And it’s not the first time he’s wanted something that was beyond his grasp. 

All the way back to where he’s arranged to meet the others, Steve plans a campaign that has nothing to do with world security.

Maybe he’ll lose this war, but at the least he’ll go down fighting.


	5. Chapter 5

He starts with text messages.

Queries that he wouldn’t have bothered her with six months ago – nothing urgent, nothing major. Just casual checks.

_Do you know what’s going down in Alexandria?_

_Have you ever heard of Gurida Thesolon?_

_Looking for a safehouse in or near Athens. Nat’s contact fell through._

He gets answers just as short and terse.

_Conflict of interest between Russian and Indian interests. Stay out of it._

_Last reports indicate Thesolon has stepped into Klaue’s shoes as arms dealer and purveyor of goods. Try not to ping his radar._

_I have a location. It needs checking; I’ll get back to you._

They spend one night in an AirBnb – far too exposed and much more squashed in than Steve likes – before his phone pings with a new address.

“Now this is the high life!” Sam adjusts his sunglasses as they stand on the villa terrace and look out over the Aegean. “Do I want to know how Maria got hold of this place? A secret life of crime?”

Nat walks up the marble staircase that sweeps gracefully from the well-manicured pool area. “Most likely someone owed her a favour.”

–

Steve sends her photos of the villa.

_Did you know how palatial this place is when you got it?_

_Yes._

He wonders if that means she’s stayed here before, a guest of the owner, Demetrios Kyritsis: shipping magnate, billionaire, playboy with a marked fondness for slender and elegant brunettes.

If she has, it’s no business of his.

It’s just personal.

Maria could fit in this kind of lifestyle, he imagines, sprawled as easily and casually as Nat on the fancy poolside lounge in a maillot, robe, sunglasses, hat, and magazine – worlds away from Brooklyn tenements, southeast Raleigh, or war-torn Sokovia.

Then, after a night spent chewing his own liver, Steve wakes remembering that Maria herself comes from south-side Chicago.  _ Not all of us were running towards something. _

That night, he sends her a photo of the cookies Wanda baked – traditional Sokovian shortcakes that probably also look a lot like  _ kourabiethes _ – with a glass of milk in the background. It would probably be social media worthy if he had any interest in being on social media.

Three hours later, he receives a picture of a half-empty glass of wine on a restaurant table, with a small dish of nibbles beside it.

In spite of the questions that the picture incites – where is she, and who’s she drinking with – Steve finds himself smiling.

Game  _ on _ .

–

Steve keeps sending her questions - about people and situations, about things that he doesn’t understand but which he’d rather hear from her than the others. Sometimes he sends her pictures of the food he’s eating and the places they’re walking through, sometimes pictures of the people around them, sometimes pictures of his drawings.

Maria reciprocates in kind with pictures of the food she’s eating, the places she’s at, the people around her.

It’s not a flirtation.

Flirtation would require suggestiveness, an interaction more personal than just photography of the world around them. But it’s contact, connection, friendship.

And it’s not like Steve’s very good at moving faster than glacial anyway.

Once, he sends her a picture of them training in the place where they’re staying – Wanda practising her telekinetic fine control by repairing a glass lamp, Nat doing handstand push-ups over a fluffy white sheepskin, Sam with his hands on his hips laughing at Steve as he takes the selfie.

Her text comes back maybe a dozen hours later:  _ What’s with the lion’s mane? _

_Don’t you like it?_

He’s no sooner sent the message when he regrets it. That’s personal, and he’s tried so hard to avoid being personal with her.

But five minutes later, she texts back,  _ It’s growing on me. Except where it is in fact growing on you. _

He grins.

–

There are all kind of reasons for the inadvisability of text-flirting with Maria Hill.

After all, his long-distance relationship with Sharon turned out so well, didn’t it?

Steve tells himself it’s not actually flirting, even if the messages that fly between them over the summer are more personal, even if he’s always the initiator, never her.

The others work it out before long. Sam looks like he wants to say something but just shakes his head. Wanda asks if he’s happy. Nat doesn’t say anything, but sometimes she watches him under her lashes, almost thoughtfully.

In the end, Steve brings it up, because while he’s pretty sure Natasha isn’t carrying a torch for him, sometimes it can be hard to tell with Nat. She emotes, but her feelings are hidden, and if he’s hurting her by stretching out towards Maria, he’d like to know.

“Strangely, Steve, not everything is about you.”

It’s not quite a snap, but there’s more exasperation in it than Steve would have expected. “Okay. I was worried about you.”

“I”m happy for you. For both of you.”

“But you’d like something for yourself.” They haven’t intentionally talked about Bruce since the second formation of the Avengers. He comes up from time to time, but that’s about it.

“It would be nice,” she admits. “But I’m not pining. Certainly not for you.”

Steve is relieved.

–

In early July, they’re hiking through Russia, near the Kazakhstan border, on their way to Mongolia when Steve gets a very brief stint of cell reception, and the photo comes through.

Steve stares at it, unable to quite believe what he’s seeing.

Dry grasses spill over rolling hills beneath an intensely blue sky, and there’s a cluster of goats eyeballing the phone and the two people in the picture. Bucky is smiling, a lazy-lidded half-smile of smug satisfaction as Maria glares at the camera, her hands on his shoulder like she’s been trying to get around him, evidently having given up trying to get her phone back off him.

_Hijacked your girlfriend’s phone. Why no dickpics? Disappointed in you, Stevie. Happy Birthday._

The next few messages are crisp.

_ I’m going to kill him. Sorry about that.  _ Then, almost as an afterthought,  _ Happy Birthday. _

Steve sends a message before he can think too hard about it.  _ Who taught him about dickpics? _

His phone message sounds a few minutes later.  _ He claims Princess Shuri did. _ A few seconds after that, she qualifies, _ As in, Shuri explained what dickpics were, not that she’s been sexting him. _

_Good to know._

–

“What the hell, Bucky?”

“I wondered when you’d call.” There’s a serenity to Bucky’s voice that comes clearly through the amusement and the limited bandwidth. “Your girl’s gone, though.”

“She’s not my girl.”

“Yet.” Bucky snorts. “Although it might take you another ten years at the rate you seem to have been going. You move only slightly faster than a glacier, Steve.”

“So everyone tells me.” Steve sighs. “Look, she’s not interested—”

“She thinks you’re friends.”

“We _are_ friends.”

“Yeah, but she thinks that’s _all_ there is to it. I thought about pointing out that at least one text a week is pretty much a full-blown love-affair for you, but I figured she’d start running and even you wouldn’t be able to catch her.”

Steve rubs his eyes and thanks whoever and whatever is out there watching over him for small mercies. “Buck, did I ask for your advice?”

“No. But I’m giving it anyway, because I’d like to see you happy." Bucky pauses, considering his next words. "I don’t think you’ve been really happy in a long time.”

“You worry about your own happiness,” Steve tells him, “let me worry about mine.”

–

In late August, Natasha arranges to lease out what’s pretty much a castle in the Italian countryside for three months.

Steve has his doubts about the length of their stay, but Natasha says that the place is solitary for miles in each direction, and so long as they take reasonable precautions, then there’s no reason that anyone should discover who’s living there.

“Let Maria know where we are, will you?” She pats him on the shoulder as she goes back onto the Quinjet to get more of their luggage out. 

Steve sends Maria a picture of the view from the balcony of his room – the long golden stretch of vineyards and farms laid out beneath a sky of blue fluffed with clouds.

_Come for the view, stay for the company?_

He doesn’t really expect a response, so he’s not really disappointed when he doesn’t hear from her.

So when Maria motors her way up the road to the castle in a cute little beige Mini, Steve is more than a little startled.

“I have an operative to check out in Firenze.” There’s a tension in her, at odds with the insouciant flutter of her thin, summery dress. Steve hopes it's because he's crowding her as he reaches for her luggage and gently eases it from her grasp. “Thought I’d come and stay for a few days.”

He looks her in the eye as his fingers graze hers. “It’s good to see you again, Maria.”

She doesn’t blush, but a wary awareness grows on her face. “Ditto.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say six chapters? I meant seven...

Maria ends up taking Steve’s room, because he finds the bed too comfortable and the attic is good enough for a man who only sleeps six hours a night.

Only, the next day, Wanda takes off to see Vision.

The day after that, Sam gets a call from his friend in Edinburgh and hops on a bus to meet her in Venice.

The day after that, Steve wakes to find a note on the table from Natasha.  _ Red Room connection located in Romania. Back in a week. _

It’s like being in the tower all over again, made uncomfortable by bringing up something that he doesn’t really want to address – he just wanted to enjoy.

In the pre-dawn light, Steve crumples the note up in his hand and wonders if Maria will wake up, realise that the others have deliberately left her alone with him, and suddenly decide that she’s got to be somewhere else in a hurry. It’s as bad as Nat’s ‘married’ comment back at the Tower – the lit spark that makes everything awkward.

In fact, when Maria wakes up, it’s to her phone and the news that she has to be in Florence by evening to meet with the operative that she’s thinking of taking on.

“I’m coming, too,” Steve tells her as he hands her the coffee he put on when he heard her answer her phone. “You’re not going to Florence without me.”

She frowns a little, but shrugs. “Tell Nat— What is it?”

“Nat took off to Romania this morning. Red Room connection.”

“Okay.” Maria blinks for a moment then shrugs. “I guess it’s just us, then.”

–

The operative is a big brawny type, solidly built, with a rough-hewn ‘salt of the earth’ look to him.

Maria knows him.

“Mitch Hannon, Australian SAS. We met in Afghanistan back in ‘02. He’s safe.” Maria murmurs to Steve.

Steve nearly asks how she can know that – fifteen years is a decade and change – but she’s already heading for the bar where the guy is sitting, watching the world go by. And even if Steve told her about the instincts the guy is setting off in him, he can see it wouldn’t change her mind. Better to stand back and keep watch, ready to intervene if things go south.

Hannon stands to greet her, reaches a hand out to clasp her arm, and leans in to kiss her on the cheek. And the uncomfortable twitch in Steve’s gut becomes a gaping hole as Maria takes the intimacy without flinching and even reaches out a hand to cup Hannon’s elbow.

Not just a colleague then, she’s been intimate with this man before.

He finds his fists clenching as he leans against the railing of the bridge, trying to be casual and suspecting he’s failing at it. And the sting only grows when Maria says something and Hannon lazily surveys the crowds and his eye lights on Steve.

Whatever he says to Maria only makes her laugh, although her eyes search out Steve and she gives him the tiniest nod and the scratch of the jaw that’s a pre-arranged okay signal.

He keeps watching, though. Watches Maria order a drink and exchange pleasantries with this old lover, watches the Australian’s gaze linger on the woman he used to know, watches with all the suspicion of a man who’s been professionally betrayed before and who’s fighting the feeling of personal betrayal now.

It’s not his right, maybe, but he still feels it.

–

Back at the castle, Steve goes for a run while Maria contacts the operative who put her onto Hannon to discuss options.

He’s never liked feeling jealous, whether it was struggling with the fact that a girl he liked wasn’t even going to give him a second look, or watching Bucky go off to war, or seeing Colonel Rhodes courteously usher Maria through the party with a hand hovering above the small of her back. It feels small and hard and ugly, and Steve dislikes those things in him.

Sometimes things just are the way they are, and there’s nothing to be done about it. And just because she’s thinking of taking Hannon on as an operative doesn’t mean she’ll take the man as a lover – for all Steve knows, the guy might be happily married for a decade or more.

Still, it was...uncomfortable...watching her with someone whom she once trusted enough to let into her bed, when Steve’s still on the outside, looking in.

_ And whose fault is that? _ The voice sounds a lot like Bucky – or possibly Nat or Sam.

_ You’ve got the girl alone in a castle in the romantic Italian countryside, so why aren’t you doing something about it? _ No, that’s definitely Sam.

_ Make a move, Steve.  _ And there’s Nat, coolly amused.  _ Maria’s more than capable of doing world security and you at the same time. _

If she wants him.

–

Coming back, his demons not quite run out, Steve finds Maria in the kitchen contemplating the fridge, and reaches past her to get the bottle of water, not much caring if it puts him in her personal space. If Hannon is allowed that casual intimacy in spite of fifteen years of separation, then Steve is surely allowed it after five years of friendship.

“Did you have any plans for dinner?”

Steve lowers the bottle and wipes a droplet off his chin. “No plans,” he says. “But I could probably throw together a chicken cacciatore thing.”

Her response takes a moment and seems confused. “Throw together a thing?”

“A chicken cacciatore thing.”

She still seems a little out of it, and, about to ask her if she’s okay, Steve sees her drag her eyes up to his face.

The word for lust these days, Sam tells him, is  _ thirst _ . At the time, Steve thought it a pretty ridiculous word; but there’s nothing foolish about Maria’s expression, about the appreciation on her face or the flush that springs up across her cheeks to match the sudden coil of heat in Steve’s belly.

He puts the water bottle down on the bench behind him, then steps in.

She lifts her face to meet him, her mouth opens to receive him, and this time Steve feels the  _ want _ like the serum through his veins - a burning ferocity that scrapes at his insides.

Maybe it should be weird standing in front of the open refrigerator kissing Maria all sweaty and messy.

It’s not. Not even close.

–

They make it to his bed –  _ her _ bed, wherever. Maria shucks his clothing like he’s corn and runs her hands across his skin like she’s a sculptor and he’s her creation. And Steve has to cage her hands before he goes off like a badly-primed gun.

He ends up with his hands clasped with hers, their eyes locked, lips parted in hoarse breaths as he moves in her with slow intent, and she curses his restraint even as she writhes and shudders under him.

Afterwards, Maria falls asleep. And Steve is starving, so he makes dinner. He’s just dishing it out, ready to go wake her up for food when she walks out in a t-shirt and denim shorts.

“Chicken cacciatore?”

Steve doesn’t intend to grin stupidly at her, it just kind of happens. “Hungry?”

“Strangely, yes.”

She moves past him to get to the fridge, and he hooks an arm around her waist and draws her over for a kiss, because he wants to, because he can, and because he likes the firm, sweet taste of her mouth and the way her fingers curl into his shoulders as she kisses him back – a lightly possessive graze of her nails.

Steve wants to do it all again, but he’s starving and he needs food. So when she draws back, rather than suggesting they go back to bed, he simply says, “Hello.”

Maria’s mouth curves in a wry smile. “Hello, yourself.”


	7. Chapter 7

That first night, Steve wakes in darkness, confused and disoriented by someone else in the too-comfortable bed. The covers have migrated over to Maria’s side of the bed and she’s buried in them, but one hand is still resting on his arm, fingertips resting in the crook of his elbow.

He eases himself closer and tucks her in under his arm. And is gratified when she wakes enough to murmur his name before snuggling in against him like he’s her personal hot water bottle.

He buries his nose in her hair and relaxes in a tangle of limbs.

It’s not just about sex, it’s about trust.

–

The next morning, he comes back from an early morning run and gets ambushed in the shower. Her skin is slick beneath his hands, but her tongue is slick over the head of his erection as he blocks the spray from her face with one hand.

If she thinks that’s going to buy her time, she’s mistaken. Pleased and pleasured, Steve takes her back to bed and discovers what Maria likes in sex amidst damp skin and laughing protest. Fast and rough works for both of them, but Maria's not averse to slow and thorough. Which is just as well, because that’s the way Steve likes sex with her.

He likes watching her bite her lip and gasp, feeling her writhe hotly under his hands and mouth and hips. He likes tasting every inch of her quite completely, until she’s telling him to hurry up, then ordering, then begging. He likes the sounds on her lips when he’s in her, taking his time and pleasure and incidentally driving her to madness, and the way she clutches him when she comes, as though she could mark him and he'd bear her marks.

He likes the weight of her sprawled on him afterwards, silence and sweat and satisfaction.

Steve cooks breakfast – he needs food and she needs coffee. But he’s fiercely aware of Maria’s movements around him in the kitchen as he fries eggs and potatoes and bacon and she works the percolator.

He’s also very aware of the tension in her spine when he drops a kiss on her shoulder.

Sex is okay, but personal intimacies are a no-go? Screw that.

It’s ornery of him to lean over her shoulder and brush his lips past her cheek as he sets down her plate before attending to his own, but now that he’s in Maria’s space, Steve isn’t about to step back.

–

Steve isn’t terribly surprised when Wanda calls in and makes it quite clear that she knows he and Maria are sleeping together without a single direct statement. However Maria seems troubled by it.

“Do I want to know how they know?”

“Did you think I was going to hide us, Maria?”

“Yes, but...we’ve only just...” Maria frowns down at the report she's reading, but the flush still climbs her throat. “They shouldn’t _already_ know.”

Steve wants to laugh. And he wants to put his head in his hands. Instead, he comes around the bench and takes her by the shoulders. “They’ve seen me read your emails, watched me send you texts, heard my voice when I’m talking on the phone. Of course they know.”

It stings a little that she might think of hiding her relationship with him from the others she works with. Of course, there’s good reason for her keeping her silence – being in a relationship with a wanted felon would make her a likely target, even more than she already is.

But Steve isn’t one for hiding who he is, what he is, what he intends, who he loves.

He’s not about to start now.

–

Sam calls to say he’s on his way back. After the usual exchange of information and a few friendly jabs, Sam clears his throat. “So...is Maria still there?”

“Yes.”

“Right. So was there anything you particularly wanted me to do in the next couple of days Somewhere Else?”

Steve glances at Maria, who’s frowning as she reads a new recipe, trying to prepare them dinner from scratch. “No,” he says, “come back.”

As he hangs up, he reminds himself that he knew their exclusive time together wouldn’t last. And at least it’s just someone else being around, instead of, say, a world security crisis.

“Tomorrow?” Maria asks without looking up from the recipe. “Or the day after?”

“The day after.” Steve sets his phone down. “Where are you going next? And when?”

“South-East Asia. I have contacts there who are reporting advanced technology being used in military regimes, particularly the nationalist movements. As to when...” She’s still not looking up from the tablet. “I was thinking next week.”

It’s too soon, Steve thinks. But then, he suspects that anytime would be too soon.

–

That night, he allows himself to be demanding, and she gives way with no shame, no apology.

“Look at me,” he commands as he moves in her, and although a high flush rides her cheeks, she looks him in the face, unflinching. “Maria.”

He’d like to think that the rawness in her gaze is more than just lust, more than just care and convenience, but Steve doesn’t always understand her – just like she doesn’t always understand him. Still, as she drops her lashes and he gasps as her body grips his in the naked glory of orgasm, Steve hopes that what they have is a start – that it could be enough to build more on.

But she has to give them a chance to take this beyond the last week – to make this work.

Steve’s pretty sure that he’s more to Maria than a body in bed, but he’s not convinced that she’d take a chance on an actual relationship with him.

That’s the part he doesn’t know: if she’ll give them that chance.

That’s the part that scares him.

–

Steve brings up the state of their relationship the night before Sam’s due to return.

They’ve just walked in the door, back from dinner in the village, and Maria’s about to go over to her laptop and start her evening work. But Steve wants this sorted out now, because he’s left it too long already.

“Maria.” She looks up, wary of the tone of his voice. “What is this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” He indicates them, watching the way she drops her gaze, the way her fingers have frozen on the laptop lid. “This. Us sleeping together. Is it just a brief interlude for you? What happens when you leave next week? Are we going to keep in touch, or can I expect not to hear from you until the Avengers are needed to save the world again?”

Pique strikes sparks in her eyes, a glimmer of hurt swiftly hidden. “You don’t seem to think very much of me.”

“I think a lot more of you than you’d probably like.” There were probably better ways to lead into the conversation, but once Steve’s in, he’s not going to tiptoe through it. “You need less emotional connection to climb into bed with someone, Maria. That’s not a judgement,” he says swiftly, “that’s just the way it is. And if all you want me for is sex, then that’s all you want me for. I’ll live with it.”

“But you want more.”

“I want this to be a relationship. Not just a fling we had one summer and never spoke of again.”

She closes her eyes for a moment and when they open, there’s regret there. “I can’t stay, Steve.”

“Have I asked you to?”

“You’re a traditional guy—”

“Who’s loved two women who were very _un_ traditional.” Because Peggy sure wasn’t your ordinary kind of woman. And Maria isn’t either. He looks her in the eye. “I don’t need the little house on the prarie with the wife waiting for me to come home, Maria. If that’s your objection, don’t even start.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“I want to hear from you.”

Her expression goes blank and confused. “You want to _hear_ from me?”

“I just want what we’ve been doing these last few months before you got here. Communication. Contact. You replying when I send you a message. You sending me a message from time to time would be nice, too.”

“Texts and photos?”

“And emails and phone calls.” Steve lets that sink in for a moment. “I can’t follow you around and I wouldn’t ask you to follow me around, but I want a relationship. A long-distance one, maybe but still a relationship. We meet up when we can, and when we can’t, we communicate in other ways.”

“We’ve been doing that before this.”

“As I said.” He hesitates, but he doesn’t want their relationship to be only long-distance. “When you have time free, I’d like to see you. I’ll come to you or you come to me – whichever works. Vision and Wanda manage it; we can, too.”

She exhales, a swift huff of laughter. “You’ve got this all planned out, don’t you?”

“I _was_ advertised as the man with a plan. The question that I don’t know is whether you’ll take it on.”

“How long will it last?”

“How long is a piece of string? Maria.”

Crossing the room to her, Steve turns her to face him. Her hands clench on themselves as she lifts her chin to look him in the face, and although he’s never seen this expression in her before, he suspects it’s uncertainty covered by simple bravado.

She’s not used to uncertainty.

Maybe other men accepted the status quo of their relationship with her as she let it stand. Steve won’t. And he won’t resent her struggle – the concerns and reservations that come so naturally to her as they always will.

“I want this as long as this lasts. As long as you want me.” He traces his knuckles down her cheek and is pleased that she nudges against his hand. “I’m not asking you to commit to forever, Maria.”

“I wouldn’t commit _to_ forever.”

“That’s why I’m not asking.” Steve leans in and presses his forehead to hers, allowing their breath to mingle. After a moment, she relaxes against him, settling under his hands. His thumbs skim the soft skin just below her collarbone, making her shiver, before he cups her throat in his hands. “So, is that a yes?”

She rolls her eyes, but tilts her mouth towards his. “Yes,” she murmurs against his lips, her hands resting on his arms. “This is a relationship.”

He takes the kiss she’s offering – and trusts that her word and their relationship comes with it. “And you’ll keep in touch?”

“I’ll keep in touch. _And_ meet with you when things allow.” She tilts her head. “Anything else you’d like to demand while we’re here?”

Steve hoists her in his arms, getting his hands under her legs so she can hook them around his hips. “Do you have to do that work _right now_?”

Maria’s smile grows wry but when she kisses Steve, she nips his lip between her teeth. A little tang of pain in the rising tide of desire, and it adds a certain spice. “I guess it can wait an hour.”

In fact, it waits _two_ hours, but nobody’s counting.

Well, they’re not counting _time_ , anyway.

Afterwards, Steve makes her a cup of hot chocolate while she logs in and answers whatever requirements are taking her attention tonight, and he leans back against the bench and watches her work.

This is what he’ll get from Maria. It’s not in her to make him the center of her life; and if it was, then Steve probably wouldn’t love her as much as he does. It’s an odd conundrum, but then so much of his life has been caught between two states of being; why should love be any different?

This is enough for him.

Steve doesn’t need an ever after; he just needs today.

–

Hours later when they’re lying spooned together, Steve’s arm around Maria’s waist, he murmurs, “So do I get to send you dick pics now?”

She laughs, a rare ripple of amusement. “Let’s not, and we’ll just tell Bucky you did.”


End file.
